Beyond the Pale of Virtue: The Other Woman

Abstract

The unique Indic oral tradition documents the narratives of marginalization while it simultaneously showcases the resistance of the marginal. The Mahabharata recounts the stories of warrior princesses like Uloopi, Chitrangada and Hidimba who, despite being achievers, have been relegated in the background by the chroniclers of the metanarrative. Castigated for two reasons: one, for being outside of the pale of the Aryan occupancy, and two, for being the ones who initiated physical intimacy which was essentially a male prerogative, these three warrior princesses were representatives of scores of others, like the women of the Balhikas and the Madrakas, who were sanctioned for being different. Labelled as fallen women, the Epic has another category which can be called the ultimate male fantasy in Freudian terms. Ever youthful, never emotional, these women had to make the ultimate sacrifice. Menaka had to abandon her infant daughter Shakuntala. Urvashi had to leave her doting husband Pururava. The raison d’être of characters like Ghritachi, Jalapadi, Rambha and many others of their kind was to be pawns in the patriarchal power play. The accounts of Ahalya and Renuka echo the trope of a woman being either evil or an object of deliverance.